


Cynical Ratings Marriage

by Paycheckgurl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Canon Consent Issues, F/M, Failed Relationship, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Kidnapper Kidnappee relationship, Obsession with the smell of shampoo, Season 11, Season 11 Spoilers, Spoilers, They dont actually get together, Unrequited Love, canon fake/pretend relationship, mystery science theater 3000 the return, will they or wont they (they wont)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-29 16:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10858059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paycheckgurl/pseuds/Paycheckgurl
Summary: Jonah isn't dead, but he is still married to Kinga. They both may be awful at relationships.





	1. Prolouge: Reports of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

**Author's Note:**

> If you came here for an actual, serious Jonah/Kinga story...that's not what this is.

Jonah Heston was not dead. Which shouldn’t have been all different from normal, seeing how he was usually not dead (captive and seeing how his life was being broadcast on Netflix now, Truman Show-ed, but not dead). But well, Max had kind of just tried to kill him. Max. TV’s Son of TV’s Frank. Affable and, for a mad scientist kidnapper, just kind of nice most of the time. What the hell, man? 

But ok, no time to think about that. Only time to think about where exactly he was space walking to. The emergency quick change button he’d built into his jumpsuit belt for his totally awesome spacesuit (which if he did say so himself was totally awesome), had worked perfectly. Reptilicus Metalicus was hollow inside and grabbed him in one swoop. Once he was inside the belly of the beast (and oh god he was never going to hear the end of “Jonah and the Whale” jokes now), it’d been surprisingly easy to just kick and body slam his way out. The metal wasn’t so much steel as it was cheap aluminum. Really, the real Reptilicus puppet models had probably been sturdier. And with his handy, dandy space suit all ready to go, it was time for a spacewalk. An awesome spacewalk. In Space. Whoo hoo!  
Well. More like lower case whoo and lower case hoo with a sharp sarcastic tone to it if he didn’t get his course set. Floating himself back on the moon itself was an option, but if he miscalculated he could miss the Moon 13 facilities by a lot and run out of air. Not nearly as cool of a death as getting eaten by a giant winged dinosaur…which while thankfully that didn’t pan out this time around, was also his preferred way to go. 

Option two was the bridge of the SOL. He could probably get to one of the exterior hatch doors Kinga used to help get him supplies to eat, breathe, and other science things, but he really wasn’t looking forward to what he had in store after that either. Oh sure, the bots would be happy to see him (probably) but there was still…alright time to save himself and face his (Fiancé? Wife? Kidnapper and media overlord whose relationship with him had gone back to default?) later. For now he was going to not die in the dark recesses of space like most of the Gizmonic Institute probably assumed he already did. Alright Jonah, he told himself. Worry about it later. It’s astronaut time!

* * *

So having to knock on the door probably lessened his dramatic entrance. So did Crow proclaiming “it knocked three times! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it before it kills us in a confusing radiation chamber thing!” when he opened the door. Servo somehow ending up on his face and attacking like a rabid Chihuahua in response didn’t help either. Although once Jonah had managed to peel the little robot off his face and hold him at arm’s length some recognition seemed to have kicked into. 

“Jonah!” he exclaimed as Jonah managed to force himself inside, completely forgetting his awesome opportunity to use the “reports of my demise” line. 

“Jonah, you’re not dead!” exclaimed Gypsy excitedly! “Oh it is so good to your face all alive and not eaten!” 

Even Cambot seemed to whirling around happily. 

Crow demanded he prove his identity as “not a zombie clone” by asking the combination to safe where he kept his signed Nirvana drumsticks (“um I don’t see how telling you that would prove anything, since you wouldn’t know if I was lying or not”), but instantly sobered to tell him “I’m really glad you’re not dead.”  
To his surprise Growler was alive and in one piece, hitting keys away on his miniature baby grand piano. Programing success! He could so come up with a bot even these guys couldn’t completely hate!

“Oh,” said Crow. “Him. Yeah we’re just keeping him around because the Mads like it when we have background music in our segments sometimes. Not because, we like him or anything. Or you for making him.” Crow’s eyes shifted a bit in a way that exposed the lie to be ridiculously transparent.

“Bring him in the theater with us and you’re dead to us for real, Heston” added Tom darkly, possibly blunting the moment a bit. “Not even for a pithily spot in Robot Rollcall!” Although after a second he added “ButAlsoWeReallyMissedYou” all in one breath (or whatever the robot equivalent of a breath was). 

“Well I mean I didn’t really program him for movie riffing anyways,” Jonah responded. “Besides, Kinga would probably pitch a fit and have him dismantled herself if we played with the show’s formula too much without her permission.”

“So speaking of Kinga,” Gypsy piped in. “What’s going on? Are you guys married now or what?” 

A familiar light began blinking on the bridge of the ship. 

“Looks like I’m about to find out,” muttered Jonah. “Bridezilla’s calling.” 

“HEEEESSSSSTOOOONNNNN!” Screeched Kinga. “How dare you almost die like that! You almost ruined the end of our season! Do you know how many fans have written in worried about your wellbeing already?”

“Well Kinga I’m really sorry about th…”

“And, Jonah Heston, you ruined our wedding!”

“Kinga, I am actually, really, really sorry…”

“What are you apologizing for! It was ratings gold!” 

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Well,” said Max popping in frame. “Not ratings gold necessarily, we still don’t get those, but it generated a lot of speculation on social media sites among those that have managed to binge the series already. Anyways Jonah, can I just take this time to tell you, how deeply truly sorry I am? I didn’t think that Repitlicus Metalicus would try to eat you…just stop the wedding. Maybe maim you. Horribly. Anyways I am so, so, so…”

“Shut up, Max!” interrupted Kinga. “Grovel to my husband for forgiveness later.” 

“Oh so umm…are we, actually...I never officially said ‘I do’, I mean!”

“Of course we’re married, you idiot. If nearly killing you off was the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers, imagine what the continued story of our romance will be!” 

“Disgusting, horrible, the worst thing ever,” mutter Max from next her. 

“Oh. Um. Well this is going to be interesting.”


	2. Kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jonah is really tall. Kinga is not.

The tube didn’t just suck him into the show opening anymore. Now it was also a transport to when Kinga felt like playing house. 

“How ‘bout a kiss for your bride?”

“Oh…ok”

Yeah ok, he could kiss his wife no problem. He hadn’t kissed anyone in over two years now since his last girlfriend had dumped him to focus on her studies (and his roommate). And sure, Kinga was evil, and his tormentor, and all those other things. But, she was kind of cute, in an “If you stuck Lucille Ball’s head on the Dragon Queen from Infra-Man” kind of way. There was also the fact he was raised to believe in marriage, believe in the power the union had to bring two people together. And when she pulled him closer to lean in it was the first thing resembling actual, comforting, human contact he’d had since they’d taken him. He shut his eyes, leaned in, and…

“You’ve got to lean in more…no…down….you are like way too tall. I’m on my toes here.”

“Here let me grab you a chair. You can stand on it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.”

“Whoa. You’re a little wobbly there.” 

“Jonah, you’ve got to like move in, right, right there. Don’t move…well?”

“Well what! You told me not to move!” 

“Not to move until you went in to kiss me, idiot!”

“Oh, right right. So like, now?”

“Yes now,”

“Alright going in now….”

“mmmm”

“Ugh you taste like egg salad!”

“That’s because the bots and I just had lunch! If you don’t like egg salad don’t send any up! I don’t even like egg salad!” 

“Does anybody like egg salad? No. Nobody likes egg salad. I only send you egg salad because everyone hates egg salad and family tradition dictates I undermine your sense of enjoyment as much as possible. I’m just following protocol here. God…Here just. I’ll go in this time…owww. Did you just move; why did you just move? My face hit your stupid face.”

“Here I’ll go in this time again. Just stay still and on the count of three. One. Two. Three…Kinga your lips aren’t even puckered and I counted.”

“I was waiting for go, not three. God for a genius you’re a moron.”

“Alright. One. Two. Three. Go.”

“Mmmm…mmm…mmmmno. No. No. Stop. You kiss like a fanfiction character that’s battling for tongue dominance but like…in the least sexy way possible.” 

“So are we done here…or?”

“One last try. As your overlord and wife I’ll lead this time. “ 

“Mmmmm….actually that’s really not bad…mmmmmmm…owwww you bit my tounge!” 

Maybe he should resurrect that spin the bottle game with the bots after all.


	3. Sleeping Together

“Ahhhh we got me movie sign!!!!!!!” Jonah instantly sprung awake. The bots were flailing about as the movie signed blared. He had to get to the hallway leading to the theater before the door sequence started! But…wait a minute. He wasn’t on the bridge. No show opening. No invention exchange. No “enter the nightmare fueled of…” No Ardy shouting “movie in the hole!”

“What the…?” 

And that was when he was dragged by two skeleton crew members to the tube to meet Kinga. 

She stood in front of him in a dark silk night gown with purple trim. Her hands were on her hips smirking down at him. Oh god did she want to…?

“It’s time for bed, Jonah,” she sneered. 

“Bedtime was earlier. You woke me up from bedtime,” he muttered. He’d learned his first week on the SOL showing Kinga anything resembling sass (at least when unprompted) was probably a bad idea. But It was also the middle of the night and his filter was starting to fail him a little. She didn’t seem to register it as backtalk though. 

“I’m a night owl. All the best mad scientist CEOs of mega corporations are.” 

“Huh did not know that,” said Jonah earnestly. 

“Oh yeah Elon Musk. Big on late bedtimes. But enough about that. Jonah it’s time you and I do what married people do. We’re sleeping together”

Oh no. 

“Kinga. Wait. Shouldn’t we talk about some things first? We’ve barely kissed, and I know we’re married and all, but this is a really big step.”

“Oh hush Jonah. We’re both ready for this.” 

“Are we? I mean I don’t even know your preferences. What positions you like. Are you…”

“Jonah. Jonah. I like being on the right side. I like a one thousand thread count sheets.”

“Oh well that’s good to know. But do we have protection?”

“We have bodyguards and a state of the art death trap security system.”

Jonah mentally filed that note about the death trap security system for any future escape attempts, before realizing what she’d just said. 

“No. That’s not what I meant. Do we have you know,” Jonah instinctively lowered his voice a bit, as if he was a virgin back in high school again, “have condoms and stuff!”

“Ewww. NO! What do you think this is, Heston?” 

“Two somewhat responsible, technically married, adults about to have intercourse?”

“No Jonah! I was talking about literally sleeping together. I’m not having cambot film a porno of us!”

“Cambot’s going to film us sleeping? Like that’s not as creepy, but that is still kind of creepy.”

“I have an idea for a montage in tomorrow's episode showing cute couple things and I’m running tests to improve the liquid video technology’s recording ability. It’ll probably take up the second or third host segment. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Um oh. So, which way’s the bedroom?” 

* * *

Kinga’s sleeping chambers matched her personality pretty well. A big oversized purple canopy bed was the centerpiece of the room. It was imposing and demanded you pay attention to it, but also seemed to belong to someone that was overcompensating for not having their dream canopy bed room during childhood. Oh and there was an electric scythe hanging on display on the wall. As they entered Jonah heard the door click behind them. 

“There’s a guard outside and that over there isn’t just for show. Don’t even try with the silly escape attempt.”

Well, at least he could say he thought about it. 

“Alright Jonah. Now cuddle me.”

Jonah awkwardly rearranged himself in the bed to take Kinga in a cuddle hold. Once he got his position sorted though, hugging Kinga was surprisingly easy. The simple fact they were laying down compensated for the height difference better than a chair did, and Kinga didn’t spend an extraordinarily long time adjusting herself against him. And having her this close actually, felt kind of nice. He could smell her hair shampoo, some kind of citrus scent. Yeah. He was seriously just deprived of human contact. And letting himself fall asleep cuddled together was his kidnapper was probably making some first year stranger danger educator weep. Also she had put on a sleep mask, most likely solely so she didn’t have to look at his face, but again, there was just something completely, and totally, comforting about the way her form melted into his. He let himself drift asleep, her citrus shampoo (orange mango, he had determined) following him into his dreams.

* * *

Jonah woke up to the feeling of being swayed back and forth. He wasn’t in Kinga’s arms, but that of a skeleton crew member tossing him back into his bunk. Violently. 

“Owwww!”

“Oh Jonah, you’re awake,” said Tom who was apparently lurking next to his bunk. “Kinga called. She said she had a message for you.” 

“Yeah,” said Crow. Who of course was also there. “She said to tell you that you snore like a dying lung patient.” 

“Which, for the record, you do, Jonah,” added Tom. “You should really have that checked out one day. Also you drool. Kinga didn’t tell us to tell you that, but you should be aware.” 

“She did however, tell us to tell you that you steal all the blankets and kick in your sleep,” added Crow. “And that you smell funny. And that Cambot was having trouble finding an angle that didn’t make your hair look stupid. And that the stupid beard on your face is really scratchy against her skin, and that you…”

“Jonah,” said Tom. “Jonah why are you putting a pillow over your ears to ignore us? Crow and I were simply telling you what she said to say. Jonah…”


	4. Downtime

When the tube came for him again, he had to concede this was just getting annoying. He, Tom, and Crow were playing a nice game of monopoly. Well, okay, nice for a given definition of the word. Crow had taken both Mediterranean Ave and Baltic Ave, declared himself the slum lord, and convinced himself he was actually a New Jersey mob landlord named Lugi Fungo Mario in the process (“’Fungo’; it’s Italian for mushroom, which I crush like the men who cross me”). Servo was probably embezzling from the bank and managed to get a monopoly on the utilities in one turn. Jonah kept landing on taxes and Servo’s utilities. 

“So seeing as how this isn’t the show opening, I’m guessing it’s couple time?” he asked. 

“You’re so smart,” she responded with a childish fake smile, and a tone he decide was just purely condescending or a genuine compliment hidden under a failed attempt to sound not entirely mean spirited in the moment. 

“We need to spend more time together just getting to know each other Jonah.”

"Well, yeah, that’s really true. I honestly don’t know all that much about you. I know you’re evil, and an inventor, that we both went to Gizmonic, and that you want to sell the MST3K brand to Disney, but you know how are doing? What have you got going on down in Moon 14 these days?”

“That last part sounds liked the opening to an escape attempt.” 

“Yeah…”

“Talking’s boring. Let’s watch a movie.”

“Oh come on! I thought I had the day off from that!”

“A good movie, Jonah.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m down for that.”

As it turned out Kinga was a big Disney fan. He probably should have pieced that together, with how often she brought Disney up, but he was still surprised when she put _Cinderella_ in. 

_Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a tiny kingdom, peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition. Here, in a stately chateau, there lived a widowed gentleman and his little daughter, Cinderella. Although he was a kind and devoted father,and gave his beloved child every luxury and comfort, still, he felt she needed a mother's care._

“Oh yay! Narration!” 

“Shut up Jonah.” 

_And so, he married again, choosing for his second wife a woman of good family, with two daughters just Cinderella's age, by name, Anastasia and Drizella._

“Drisella. So in the original fairy tale Cinderella was an insult that stuck, but why is Drisella’s name so awful? She’s an awful person, sure, but they couldn’t have known that when they slapped a baby with a name that invokes imagery of depressing weather and unpleasantness. Meanwhile her sister gets a name that invokes Russian royalty.” 

“Jon _ah_.”

It was upon the untimely death of this good man, however, that the stepmother's true nature was revealed. Cold, cruel, and bitterly jealous of Cinderella's charm and beauty, she was grimly determined to forward the interests of her own two awkward daughters.

“I mean I knows she’s evil and all, but at least the stepmother is trying to foster her kids’ interests. It’s not their fault Cinderella’s just naturally good at everything they like.”

“Seriously Heston, shut it!”

He managed to shut it until the birds came on screen. 

_Tweet. Tweet Tweet._

“And then she got bird flu.”

Kinga paused the movie. 

“Are you capable of shutting up during a movie at all?”

“I mean yeah, but we’ve both probably seen this one dozens, if not hundreds, of times so it’s not like we don’t know what happens. It’s _Disney’s Cinderella_ , come on. Also it is kind of a reflex now that I’ve been doing it so often. The Stranger Things bit you had us do to promote last season pretty much cemented that.”

“Ugh. Fine, no movie. Let’s just…talk. Have any compliments you want to shower on me, dear?”

“Your hair smells really nice.” 

She threw him into the tube and had him sucked back to the SOL theater.


	5. Interlude: Second Fiddles and Bots Who Totally Seriously Do Not Care (Seriously)

The alarm bleeped alerting the bots that there was a call from the Mads. Only one Mad was currently busy trying to…whatever she was hoping to get out this sham of a marriage with their human companion, meaning it was the other one.

“Hello _Max_ ,” said Servo. 

“Yeah hi _Max_ ,” Crow added folding his arms. 

Gypsy simply left a hmppph before nodding her tendril beside them. 

“Come on guys, it’s TV’s Son of TV’s Frank.”

“Sorry _Max_ ,” said Servo doubling down. “We have things to talk about. Robot Reptilicus sized things.” 

“Yeah!” Added Gypsy. “Where do you get off almost killing our friend!” 

“Yeah!” added Crow “Only you should totally never tell him we called him our friend. We’ve got a reputation to keep! And that reputation is that we’re jerks!” 

“Yeah,” said Tom.

“Look. Guys. I said I was really sorry about that. Doug McClure was on Rocket Number Nine and he told me to be more assertive and dominant to win over Kinga. And I found the robot and I already told you I didn’t think it would actually eat him!”

“You dolt! You listened to Doug McClure?” exclaimed Servo. “Now if it was Rock Hudson that would be different.”

“I know. I know. I was soooo dumb,” Max cried. Tears started coming down his face. 

“Ugh he’s crying,” said Crow. “Gypsy make him stop crying.”

“I’m not programmed to console humans with their emotional distress. You deal with it.” 

“Ugh but I’m no good at this. Servo. Deal with it.”

“I think we just proved that overall I’m better at making people cry as opposed to stop it.”

“It’s, it’s ok,” cried Max. “I need to live with my near murderous guilt!”

“Oh for the love of…” exclaimed Crow. “We don’t care about the fact you almost murdered people in general. Mike is our best friend and do you know how many planets he blew up? A lot. A lot of planets! No! We care that you almost murdered Jonah. Jonah is our idiot and we are going to protect him and care for him the way he cares for us. And you are absolutely not going to tell him I said that either!”

“Okay,” sobbed Max as he wiped away a tear. 

“Now about this Kinga thing,” said Tom. “Don’t worry about it! It’s obvious that whatever weird, artificial relationshippy mambo jumbo is brewing between them won’t last. Have you seen Jonah? There’s no way that guy can hold onto someone as high maintenance as Kinga. Total pushover, am I right.” 

“But Doug McClure said I’m a pushover,” said Max. 

“Oh you are totally a pushover,” said Crow. “But you’re a pushover who we’re going to help get the girl. Or at least help to be able to pine over the girl who’ll be single again once we break up her and the other guy.”

“Not. That. We. Care. Or. Anything.” Said Servo, punctuating each word.


	6. Dinner Date

So their last attempt to hang out together on a “date” had not actually gone well. But Jonah was going to try again anyways, and when Kinga suggested (demanded) a formal dinner date, he decided to go all in. This time they were aboard the SOL. Growler was playing at his keyboard off to the side, setting the mood. Tom and Crow had (somehow) agreed to play waiters, with Gypsy signed herself up as a hostess to seat them. Kinga had a few Skelton Crew bring up food from Moon 14 earlier which was being kept warm in some fancy chafer dishes. “Not dinosaur meat” she had sworn, but her fingers were noticeably crossed and poorly hidden behind her back when she said so. Max maybe would have made more sense as a waiter than the bots, but Kinga didn’t seem to trust him with this. And come to think about it, the bots had been a little too eager to play along.

“Your seats, Sir and Madam,” said Gypsy descending down on them.

“Why thank you,” said Jonah, getting into character as a fine diner. “My what a fine establishment!”

“Your waiter will by shortly, but first, your wine list.” 

A long pause followed. 

“I said your wine list!” repeated Gypsy at full volume. 

And out of view of the bridge he heard Crow shout “SERVO that was your cue!” 

“Coming, coming.” 

After a moment the little red bot found his way over, holding a menu using a fancy script font which Jonah had printed earlier. 

“We have the finest Yellow Tail 2017 Next Sunday AD vintage or the...actually that’s all we have on the list. Honestly woman, _Yellow Tail_? You are an insult to fine wine everywhere!”

Jonah made a “cut it out” motion with his finger across his throat. An upset Kinga still meant the loss of his oxygen and (another) bad date on top of it. 

Kinga made a shooing motion, prompting Tom to start fidgeting as if he were going to attack her. Jonah jumped in quickly saying “I’ll have the Yellow Tail, sir. And one for the young lady as well.” which seemed to pacify both him and Kinga. 

And then Kinga and Jonah stood in awkward silence. Jonah was fighting the urge to say “so” or anything to fill quiet space, seeing as how apparently he talked to much. He ended up taking his utensils and began drumming instead. 

“Stop that,” demanded Kinga. 

“Sorry, sorry.”

“What is that a reflex like the movie riffing too?”

“Sort of I mean I’ve been drumming since I was five. You know my parents wanted me to play piano, which I also learned…”

"And now you’re talking again.”

“Right sorry.”

They stood in silence for a few moments before Jonah started drumming again.

“Oh right. Sorry. Oh did I tell you that the other day I created a wood carving of,” 

“Jonah.” 

“Oh right sorry.” 

And then he started drumming again. 

The talking/drumming loop repeated itself about five times before Servo emerged to pour their Yellow Tail and Crow with food. And then almost immediately Tom spilled some wine on Kinga’s coat. And then the wine splashed, just a tiny bit, on Crow’s midsection. 

Crow threw some “totally not dino meat” at Servo in retaliation, declaring “food fight!” Jonah may or may have whole heartily joined in, brown blobs of barbecue sauce soaked prehistoric slabs of meat flying everywhere. Gypsy descended down obscenely to tell them to behave, or at least that was where it seemed she was going when she started saying “Hey! Do you know how hard it is to maintain this ship when it’s covered in gunk like this?” only to may or may not have ended up shoving food around with her head, managing to land what was left of Kinga’s plate on Kinga’s lap. 

The chaos continued unabated for another ten minutes (at one point Servo and Crow reached a truce and instead of pelting each other, put their effort solely into pelting Growler who was too chill to really try and fight back with them) before another piece of…something…landed in Kinga’s hair near her bone chopsticks, prompting her to stand up and shout “ENNNNNOOOOOUUUUGGHHHHH.” 

Jonah sobered, coming to senses about just how much trouble he was about to be in. Crow shouted “scatter!” and he and Servo hustled away (presumably back to their room). Gypsy quickly descended back to the ceiling, quickly muttering something or other about the ship’s essential functions. 

“Um…” said Jonah. 

Kinga pursed her lips. 

“Wow you know even with the food in it your hair still smells really nice. And it’s so shiny!” 

The next day (after Jonah and the bots spend the night cleaning up the place themselves) she sent them the Garbage Pail Kids Movie, a film where the only impressive thing about it was that Mystery Science Theater got the rights to it. And maybe how much it hated humanity and disregarded common decency. Kinga really didn’t seem in the mood to play along with their subversive 80s toy trend parodies, and Jonah wondered if oxygen being cut would have been better retaliation to swallow after all.

* * *

Max called in to the bots after Jonah retreated to remind himself about the good things in humanity in his bunk, and Kinga had gone off to do some “market research” (whatever that was). 

“I want to thank you guys,” he told them. “You really went above and beyond to get Kinga upset.”

“Oh that,” said Crow. “That was just us messing around. Our actual plan involved explosives, the reincarnated soul of Yongary out for revenge, and mass amounts of Triple A batteries.”

“But sense you are satisfied with our services anyway we consider our work done,” said Servo. 

Max shrugged. “I guess I’ll take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garbage Pail Kids may have had a bit too much of a mainstream release for this show, but then again it is an agreed upon "worst movie ever" according to several sources including the "List of films considered the worst" page on Wikipedia, so yeah. 
> 
> Also I honestly kind of like Yellow Tail wine.


	7. Divorce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No disrespect meant to any of the herein ships mentioned (including Kinga/Jonah).

“We’re getting divorced,” said Kinga plainly through the monitor. 

"But why?" exclaimed Jonah. "Sure we hate kissing each other, find spending time together annoying, hate having real conversations, and you apparently can’t stand sharing a bed with me. Also I’m not even sure our marriage was legal to start with, what with the whole kidnappee thing and the fact we never even consummated it, but despite all that I thought that maybe, we had something. That…that we were going to make it work.”

Kinga sighed. “The fans aren’t taking to it. A few weeks after the premiere of season eleven there were zero fanfics shipping us together, _zero_. But there were several shipping me with Max…ew. There’s a few more now but it just feels like the majority of fandom just doesn’t want to sink their teeth into it no matter what I try! God there was one point where there was more content shipping you with _Joel_ than with me.” 

“Well I mean there is the age old fandom adage: ‘het is ew’.” 

Kinga glared at him. 

“What? Completely objectively, if you look at it from a slash fan’s perspective, it could make sense if you ignore the fact we've never met and that I could never get Crow to respect me as his stepdad. Although from the fan mail you've sent up I think there's more fans out that have Mike/Joel as an OTP anyways...”

She groaned audibly, and threw her hands up in frustration. “I just…we should have everything that shippers want,” she complained. “We come from two different worlds evil, and hapless nice guy. We have a cynical fake relationship with the potential for it to become a less cynical contrived real relationship. We even had canon relationship milestones to jump off of for prompts! It’s so frustrating!” 

“Well I’m sorry to hear that Kinga. But maybe it’s because fans want to invent that stuff? You know, take two people that shouldn’t go together, completely on their own without prompting from canon?”

“Well that would explain why so many people want me together with, ugh, Max,” she said.

“Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe they want you with Max because you _do_ actually make sense together?” 

“Imply that Max and I belong together again and you’re getting the absolute minimum in food rations to keep your pathetic body alive all next month.”

“Okay, okay sorry. Sheesh.” 

Despite the threat after a moment she added “You weren’t a bad fake husband Jonah. I mean you were, in almost every way, but one day you’ll make someone really happy.”

“Really?”

“No, because I’m never letting you off that satellite until I finally drive you insane in a ratings breaking fan favorite episode that can rival _Manos Hand of Fate_!”

* * *

That night Jonah sat on his bunk tracing his permanent temporary tattoo. It was off center, lopsided, and probably a dumb idea in hindsight, not unlike their relationship. But despite everything he did miss little things. Her touch. The scent of her hair. That hair. He really loved that orange mango scented, silky hair. _Hey wait a minute._

* * *

“Jonah, are you still all weepy over Kinga?” asked Tom, entering Jonah's side of the sleeping quarters. 

“Because if you are we’re here to knock some damn sense into you,” replied Crow. 

“Guys no it’s fine! See there were little things I missed about being with Kinga, you know, but what I really missed the way her hair smelled. But then I realized, I just wanted the shampoo she uses! Look at my hair. Isn’t really silky and soft? What. Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Oh sorry,” said Crow. “I was just trying to figure out if all humans were this stupid or only the ones we know.” 

“Hey Jonah,” said Servo. “I just realized! You were in the literal belly of a beast. It was _Jonah and the Whale_ , get it? Or should I say Jonah and the _Reptiliwhale_ , am I right? Jonah? Jonah you’re doing that thing where you’re ignoring us with your pillow again. Jonah?”

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an idea for a sort of sequel where Kinga forces everyone who's ever been on the show to inter-date in order to find the perfect fanfic bait couple (and Crow and Tom will accept absolutely no one dating Joel because no one is allowed to be their step-parent, while Kinga continuously refuses to ship herself with Max), but we'll see if I ever get around to writing it.


End file.
